The present invention relates generally to a docking station for a portable computing device and, more particularly, to a voice-interactive docking system for use in a motor vehicle.
Portable computing devices, such a Palm(trademark) personal digital assistant handheld computing device, are not designed to be safely used by the driver of a motor vehicle. Accessing information on a portable computing device typically involves viewing a display screen that presents information to the user and/or entering information using a stylus by writing on the display screen. Each of these access methods require the driver of a motor vehicle to at least momentarily take their eyes off the road, thereby causing safety concerns.
Although portable computing devices offer ideal opportunities to exploit speech technology, they also present a challenge in that processing power and memory is often limited within the device. To limit memory usage, a typical embedded speech recognition system will have a very limited, static vocabulary. In this case, condition-specific words, such as the names found in an address book, may not be recognized by the system. Therefore, it is desirable to provide a voice-interactive docking station for a portable computing device that is being used in a motor vehicle.
To complement the portable computing device, the docking station provides the additional processing power and memory needed to support robust speech recognition and/or speech synthesis features. In this way, the voice-interactive docking station provides hands-free information access to the portable computing device for the driver of a motor vehicle. Additionally, the docking station serves as an interface between the portable computing device and other vehicle systems.
In accordance with the present invention, a voice-interactive docking station is provided for a portable computing device. The portable computing device includes at least one information management application and a corresponding database for storing the data associated with the information management application. The docking station generally includes a speech input device for receiving speech input, a speech recognizer for translating the speech input into voice command data, and an interface application for interacting with the applications residing on the portable computing device. In particular, the interface application, in response to voice command data, accesses the data associated with the information management application residing on the portable computing device. The docking station may further include a text-to-speech synthesizer for converting output data from the interface application into speech output data, and an audio system for generating audio output from the speech output data.
For a more complete understanding of the invention, its objects and advantages, refer to the following specification and to the accompanying drawings.